Touch
by CloeyMarie
Summary: That was what it all boiled down to really, the thing that broke Katara bit by bit, touch.


The first time he touched her, it was like butterfly wings fluttering against her skin. Delicate. She crushed it though. Ground the gentleness into dust because his touch should not feel like butterfly wings when she was tied to a tree for all the world to see, pinned as if some fine specimen for him to note with clinical precision. But, she could not connect the original flutter of wings against her skin with the tsunami it raised the world over. He was fire, the unpredictable. The brief hesitation before complete destruction. She did not speak of the incident, of having her most precious item dangled before her very eyes; a voice, low and raspy with something akin to earnestness – but never meaning, no, that she could not accept – as he tempted her. Suddenly, he was more a spider but she was still an insect, body encased and trapped in the web of his weaving. Utterly trapped.

It never really changed. He pinned her beneath his harsh look and she turned away. Afraid of the unasked questions that danced along the edge of his eyes like fickle flames. She didn't want to know. She didn't want to ask the questions that he had answers to. She was water, she was calm, she was right, she was just. He, he had no place in the in between. She and her cause were light. Pure. He, he was dark, so dark. And, if he did not mean evil then she was left awash. Left to sink in the undercurrent with nothing to latch onto. She rallied against this attack on all she knew. Spitting defiance and hatred into her every movement, her every action. She was not weak, she was strong and true.

She escaped, but they continued to clash, breaking against one another like waves against the shore but he never wore away. The strength of water is its ability to change. So, Katara changed. Became better. Fought harder. Gave up childhood to protect the most precious person in the world from everything that sought to extinguish his light. She didn't question it when all the odds stacked against them came to mean him, Zuko. The dark prince who sought to reclaim his lost light and blow out the world's. She admits to herself, sometimes, that he was not pure dark, pure evil. No, he was a many faceted creature, lumbering with unwavering determination towards its goal. But if he was not all evil, then they were not all good. It was so much simpler when he was dark and they – she, she needed to stand for something, to be something of worth – were light. And no one questioned it. No one tarnished the image she had lovingly crafted in her mind of brave freedom fighters setting the world to rights. No, she continued on fundamentally mistaken.

The next time he touched her, it was in the heat of battle. They were matched, perfectly balanced as they fought next to the spirits as Aang went in search of hope. They were so even, only the sun or moon could tip the scales and that bothered Katara deeply. They were not supposed to be equal. She was better, better than him, so why could she not win? It tormented her, driving her to push her skills. But, when he touched her this time, it was with the precision of knowledge, of a true battle. She feels triumph when she encases him in a sphere of ice, legs and arms locked in place. Finally, finally she has succeeded in defeating him. When his hands glow red hot and he bursts forth seconds later, it feels like he is defying the very spirit world. He will rip apart the fabric of existence to get at the Avatar, he is unstoppable in his quest, she concedes as her world fades to black and the knowledge that she has failed Aang pools in her stomach.

When she swallows down the bitter pill of not being quite enough, never quite enough, she works all the harder. Mastering moves she has never dreamed of before. When they clash as is inevitable, she cannot help but think of yin and yang but that is wrong. Yin and yang mean balance, completeness. She fights against this, hates the blue of her water that is consumed by the red heat, erupting into steam. An equation balanced. When Hana the puppet master forces the technique of bloodbending on her, something breaks. Some crucial part of herself knows she can no longer keep up the illusion of being pure, she has held another's heartbeat within her grasp and been ready to crush it. She is no better than the disgraced prince.

Maybe that is what has her reaching out to him, ready to cup his face in her palm and use the water from the spirits to fix him in the cavern of crystals. Maybe that is what has her talking about her mother, giving away these bits of herself to a man who has no more reason to care for her than she him. When he betrays her after that, rejoining his sister who Katara has never had a problem labeling all dark in her mind, not the mirky in-between of Zuko, it hurts. Hurts like she lost a part of herself, maybe it is in the way his eyes which before had looked upon her as a human, as something worthy of comfort and closeness now ring hollow. She has been reduced back to nothingness in his eyes and she can't quite seem to do the same to him. He means something to her now, isn't just some faceless enemy. Nor is he some friend. He is Zuko and all the contradictions and half formed thoughts associated with him. She touched him, willingly. It is no longer a one sided thing. She is just as guilty in this thing that has no name between them. She too has become the instigator. Burying herself into her sleeping roll that night she doesn't feel disgust at the thought of touching him, the guilty beating of her heart confirms it. That scares her more than anything; it's a threat from within.

When he joins their team, she opposes it with a passion born of desperation. He can't be so close. He can't join their side. It will ruin her; ruin everything she's ever told herself. So, she says hurtful things, rubs salt in his wounds and if his eyes dare soften to her she makes sure they harden a moment later. For a time it works, keeps him at bay. But, like in all things, he is not to be deterred so lightly. When he confronts her about her behavior by pulling her into an empty room off the beaten track for the air temple's other inhabitants she knows she has no way of escaping. No convenient excuse that will serve to send him and the temptation he represents away from her.

They rage at one another for a time, pointing out each other's faults as if that is what it's really about. Slowly, slowly they come around to the nexus of the problem, each step closer yields more truth. The full moon allows her to feel the way his body is pumping the blood at an increasing rate, the way his eyes dip to her lips before snapping back into place looking at her eyes, the way his fingers twitch slightly with the urge to do something. They are on a crash course that was started so long ago by fingers against her neck like butterfly wings. This is the culmination, the tidal wave of her body and his crashing into one another. They are like wildfire, hands leaving trails of desire curling in her belly as she feels her way along his musculature. They fight for dominance, each kiss a battle of sorts as she is pushed into the wall, sandwiched between the cool of the stone and the warmth of his body pressed up against her. Sliding her hands under his shirt she lightly drags her nails down his lower back, reveling in the way his breath catches and he loses focus on her neck that he had been nipping and biting his way along to let out a low moan. She feels a little damned, a little less of the girl she was but the way his hands rest on her ribcage before traveling down to her hips has her past the point of caring.

When they pull away from one another, a look shared seems insufficient. Can not cover what just took place. Does not speak to her in the way she needs right now, on the brink of something new that she had sworn to herself she would never permit but has happened regardless. When his hand takes hers and gives a light squeeze, all she can do is let out a watery chuckle. There, that is what was needed because they complete one another in the most basic, instinctual manner. He a being seeking redemption, she one learning to forgive. And at the core of it all, the link between what has been and what is to come is the simple connection of touch, of her hand in his.


End file.
